Minsky slams modern AI

Quoted in Wired magazine, he lambasted the last 30 years of work in the area, particularly the focus on creating AI driven autonomous robots.

However, the article finishes on a throwaway comment about the ‘moving goal posts’ problem in the perception of artificial intelligence, that belies much of the problem with how AI is perceived.

It is illustrated by the success of chess computers. In the 60s, it was said that computers will never beat people at chess, because that requires intelligence and computers aren’t capable of intelligent thought.

When computers regularly started winning matches in the 80s, it was claimed that playing chess wasn’t a test of real intelligence because computers could do it.